The Case of Black Study in Black Independent Book Spaces

• In Event: Decolonial Knowledge(s)

Abstract

Amid renewed efforts to defund the Department of Education and the ongoing marginalization of Black and Indigenous knowledges and histories within higher education, this paper, based on a chapter from my dissertation, explores Black independent book spaces. When institutional structures are deeply embedded in daily life, what does it mean to reject Western ways of knowing? What does engaging in Black Study entail? Drawing on ethnographic observations from January 2024 to December 2026 in physical and digital book spaces in South Central Los Angeles, this project highlights how Black Study is enacted through everyday organizational practices within Black independent book spaces. I demonstrate how Black book spaces foster an ethic of regard, treating knowledge and study as relational practices shaped by proximity to state institutions and the conditions of care amid anti-Black state violence. Rather than relying on formal administrative or governance structures, these independent book spaces serve as hubs for relational, often autonomous Black Study. The study identifies three key indicators: 1) Relationality, 2) Working in and with struggle, and 3) Cross-cultural exchange. Ultimately, I argue that these spaces are more than bookstores, libraries, or community archives; they are spaces that hold knowledge, memories, and legacies of rupture that shape an individual’s form of “Black Study.” I conclude that these spaces serve as “grassroots cultural institutions” where shared political struggles and cross-cultural exchanges facilitate a form of “Black Study” transmitted through energetic, multimodal knowledge networks rooted in African and Indigenous knowledge systems—often mediated by books, collective and independent study, and humanist-leftist ideologies.

Author

• Kyanna Richard, University of California-Irvine